October 19, 2020 — Rebekah Williams has vivid memories clamming and gathering oysters with her grandfather on his 10-acre oyster farm.
Her early childhood dream was to become an oyster farmer just like grandpa.
Williams has always loved being on the water, but children have a way of growing up and moving on to other things. After college, Williams came home for the summer and began working at Sammy’s, a local restaurant. Soon, Williams learned that Sammy Boyd had an oyster farm. He also grew up in the fishing industry.
When Williams shared her childhood dream with Boyd of starting a business of farming oysters, Boyd highly encouraged her.
In 2016, she officially obtained a lease from the State of North Carolina and in 2017 began buying “seed oysters.” Seed oysters are tiny oysters as small as 1 millimeter that are raised from larval oysters.